Photo of the Week - Old School Flower and Garden Festival

Sometimes we forget how long the flower and garden festival has been around.  Anyone want to guess how old this photo is?  Do you think its more or less than ten years old?


It was taken in 1999.  Now I'll really make the old school fans cry.  Guess what was on my left when I took this?  That's right Horizons was still standing.  That's how old this photo is.

New Video Posted - Sunset Over Ft. Lauderdale

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Usco6beJcGYA video of a sunset over Ft. Lauderdale has been posted to YouTube.  The video was taken from a couple miles out to sea. The video is in full HD - 1080p.  The speed of the video was boosted to 3X.

The video can be seen here.

Snow White Bites the Apple

It’s now official – The Scary Adventures of Snow White is getting shutdown.  What’s amazing is - not many people are really upset about it.  I think the fact that a new Snow White related ride is coming is helping to temper people.

In some ways I’ll miss Snow White.  I remember riding it as a kid.  The witch scared me.  The part that really scared me was when she was trying to drop the boulder.  I have no idea why it scared me it just did. 

Years later I was happy to know I wasn’t alone.  Lots of kids have been frightened by Snow White over the years.

I do feel bad for family with the autistic child who have ridden this ride some ridiculous number of times.  Actually I should say I feel bad for the child.  He’ll be upset.  I bet the parents broke down and cried tears of joy when the announcement was made.

One thing I do expect to happen now.  I expect to see a record number of YouTube videos of this attraction spring up.  I have to say that’s one area where YouTube is priceless.  It allows us to see all the attractions we’ve lost over the years.

New Video Posted - Carnival Vista Suite Overview

I have posted a honest detailed video review of a Carnival Vista Suite to YouTube.  The video is in 1080p.  This is my first 1080p video.  I've always captured in1080p but until now it was always hard to edit in that format. 

You can view the video here

Mickey’s Toontown Fair is Officially Gone

Last week Mickey’s Toontown Fair officially closed.  I’ll be honest.  In all my trips to Disney World I never once went through this area of the Magic Kingdom.  I never rode any of the rides or saw any of the characters there.

If I had been able to get down to Disney before the area was shut down I would have gone through it.  It sounded ok and seemed like it had some fun areas and details.  I guess that’s my only regret is the fact that I never got to really see Toontown.

I know a lot of other people are really upset at seeing this area close.   I can understand that.  I feel bummed every time I think about the original Journey Into Imagination, Horizons, World of Motion, and the Original Version of the Universe of Energy.

Most of the time people are not upset about the attraction closing.  Most of the time people are upset because it feels like something is being taken away and there is nothing they can do about it.  People like to go back to Disney and share their memories with family and friends.  You can stop and point to an area and reminisce about a fond memory.  When that area is no longer there you are just left with a memory.  When the area no longer exists you can’t relive the experience with your children or friends.  I think that’s what really bothers people.

One thing I try to keep in mind when anything is replaced is the “Norway Syndrome.” The Norway Syndrome is when something is left in place for too long and it goes from relevant to annoying to humorous.  Of course I am talking about the movie in Norway.  Believe it or not but that was an ok movie when I was a kid and saw it the year it opened.  Within ten years it was bad and needed to be replaced.  If it had been replaced I guarantee you that there would be people today who would claim the movie was good and wish it hadn’t been replaced.

Even though we loved Horizons and other long gone attractions would we still love them today?  Sometimes we would.  Sometimes Disney makes a timeless attraction like the original Journey Into Imagination.  If Horizons was still around it would have needed some major rehabs over the years but we might still like it.

Let us hope that the Mickey’s Toontown Fair attractions are remembered with more smiles than frowns ten years from now.

CMDTA on Vacation – Carnival – To Do or Not to Do?

After everything is considered would I go on Carnival again?

Let’s consider a few things first.

• They are much better than NCL (no surprise there)
• The food is very good
• The price is often half of what Disney charges
• VIP check in is great
• The waiters are acceptable
• The entertainment is much improved.

So would I go on them again?

No.  This was my last cruise on Carnival and I don’t say this lightly.  I’ve been on a number of Carnival cruises and I have some good memories of them.   I also have some horrific memories that Carnival did nothing to fix or try to prevent over the years.

Here are some of the issues:

• The customer is never right and you never have a problem worth addressing
• Customer service is awful
• Maintenance is awful.  They tried four times to fix our stateroom door and failed. I finally figured out how to fix it myself.
• The sales culture has invaded in full force to the point where it’s annoying
• Excursions are overpriced
• Alcohol is overpriced – even for a cruise ship
• Major cutbacks could be noticed throughout the entire cruise
• Nothing about the service makes you feel welcome

Carnival is now at the point where I never want to cruise them again.  My fear is next time things will have gotten so bad that the experience will be similar to what you get on NCL. I have no desire to punish myself like that.  Right now Carnival is heading in the wrong direction.  Their biggest problem is their customer service.  It’s just bad.  Hopefully they can right the ship before it’s too late. If they don’t they will find themselves in big trouble.  NCL is already dominating the crappy cruise market.

CMDTA on Vacation – Carnival’s Entertainment

If you’ve read my past overviews about cruising you know how I normally detest a majority of the “entertainment” that can be found on a cruise ship.

Upfront I will say that Carnival has done a great job with their entertainment.  In the past a majority of the shows were those awful Vegas Review style shows that I hate so much. Sometimes they would throw in a comedian to spice things up but other than that the entertainment was bad.

This time there were only a few Vegas style shows.  The first night you had the usual kickoff  show.  It’s not bad but it’s not great either.  It’s full of the cruise director and others talking about what’s coming up.  They also had a couple of comedians do some short sets.  They actually found decent comedians which was a nice surprise.

Carnivals main show was a Beatles tribute.  The only thing that saved the show was the Beatles music.  Without that it would not have been good.  One really odd thing about this show came at the end.  A band came on stage and did a few Beatles songs.  The odd thing was they looked nothing like the Beatles.  I realize that a lot of tribute bands don’t really look like the band they are imitating but these guys looked like the opposite of the Beatles.  In fact you would have been hard pressed to find four people who looked less like the Beatles.

Another night there was a show themed around Frank Sinatra.  We didn’t make it to that show but I got a detailed report from the couple we had dinner with.  Before I tell you what they said let me say that they like the Vegas style entertainment.  They like most cruise ship entertainment. They hated this show. They said it was a strange show with a guy who didn’t sound like Sinatra who liked to talk about himself.  I’m really glad we missed that one.

The rest of the week was filled up with a ventriloquist and some other forgettable shows.  They weren’t bad they just average.

The final show was a talent show.  Guests could get on stage perform.  I had to go to this one.  I love a good train wreck.  I was not disappointed.  One person out of all of them could sing. The rest were awful and I mean awful.  One girl tried to do a Brittany Spears song.  She did it so poorly she made Brittany Spears seem like she has some talent.  For that to happen you have to be beyond bad.

The only one who did well was an old guy who sang a Garth Brooks song.  I’ve never listened to Garth Brooks.  I don’t know if he did good or not but his singing didn’t hurt my ears so I assume it was good.  Most of the crowd sang along too and really got into it.  It was funny at the end because my wife asked me if I’d ever heard the song before.  Neither of us had.  When you live in New England you don’t listen to country music.

Overall Carnival was much improved in the entertainment department but is that enough to save them overall?  You’ll know soon.

Photo of the Week - Epcot at Night

Epcot is the most beautiful of all Disney parks at night.  You can try to argue for another.  The Magic Kingdom has some areas that are nice.  DHS also has some areas but Epcot is amazing no matter where you go.

What Would You Do?

Over the past few years Disney has been releasing discounts like popcorn.  In fact Disney has released so many discounts that people don’t wait for them anymore.  People have started booking the resort they want and sit back and wait for a discount they can apply to their booking.

That’s not a bad idea but it poses the question – What happens if no discount is released? Do you take it one the chin and pay rack rates or would you cancel your booking?

What it boils down to is how much have you invested already.  You can get your deposit back if you cancel in time.  What about airfare?  That can be a major issue.  If you get a good price on airfare and lock it in you might be stuck with it unless you pay a large fee.  It’s not uncommon to pay a $100 per ticket change / cancelation fee when you try to cancel a flight you have already booked.  On the other hand if you wait to book your airfare the price might shoot through the roof and you’ll pay much more if you do decide to go.  It’s a sticky situation.

If I had booked my airfare I’m going to take the vacation unless something really bad happens.  It’s really hard for me to turn around and tell people I’m not going anymore.  Work would be annoyed because they already did the scheduling for it and my wife would be annoyed because she would have been looking forward to it.

For some people though it does make sense to cancel outright. If you are driving down or live near Disney you can easily sit it out and wait.  In that case you might have little or no monetary loss if you cancel your trip but can you mentally deal with?